The government has no plan for massive daily influx of refugees

Refugee crisis

According to the plan, which also takes into account the costs, Slovenia seems to be ready to accept 900 migrants. Foto: Reuters

The Ministry of the Interior estimates there is a possibility of a larger number of asylum-seekers to enter Slovenia. This could happen relatively soon since Hungary is building the fence on its border with Serbia.

The interior ministry refrained from commenting whether the pressure of migrants on Slovenia has already intensified or not, but they emphasized that this could happen on the border with Croatia if Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania would not be able to accept more migrants.

In this case Slovenia would have to face the so-called pressure of secondary migrations within the EU, which will be uncontrolled, the ministry wrote, pointing out the possible effect of the fenced border between Hungary and Serbia in a detour of migration currents across Croatia into Slovenia.

Plans only for a smaller number of people
In July the Slovenian government passed a plan for providing accommodation and care to an increased number of seekers of international protection. The plan for an increased influx of refugees, which is also available online, is to place them in the asylum home in Ljubljana, integration houses in Maribor and Ljubljana and in the Centre for Foreigners in Postojna, which can accommodate up to 280 people altogether.

The next step of the plan, for the arrival of up to 500 refugees, is to place migrants in temporary facilities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Slovenian National Police at the location of the home for migrant workers at the Kotnikova Street in Ljubljana and the Debeli rtič vacation facilities, which can accommodate up to 220 people in total.

In the case of a massive daily influx of asylum-seekers, when all of the above-mentioned facilities are filled up, the plan instructs "to find temporary facilities for cases of emergency", where the facilities or all ministries and other governmental agencies would be included. The Ministry of Defence and its Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief can currently accommodate up to an extra 400 people.

According to the plan, which also takes into account the costs, Slovenia seems to be ready to accept 900 migrants. Yet, every day thousands of migrants seek to enter Macedonia and Serbia and continue to Hungary from there.

A. Č., MMC;
translated by K. Z.